Company culture has become an important part of how businesses are perceived. Businesses with a positive culture are more likely to attract clients and customers. Statistics also show that over 50% of executives believe that having a good culture can influence productivity, creativity, profitability, firm value and growth rates.
However, while it can be easier to describe and quantify a company’s products and services, defining culture is a lot more difficult. It requires capturing the company environment, values and relationships.
Identifying what your company culture is, or what you want it to be, will determine your work processes, hire new people into your team, and how you and your employees interact with clients.
The first thing to do is to identify key traits that describe your culture. Bring together a diverse group of people from across your company and brainstorm words and qualities which describe the culture. Collate the words which you hear the most so that you end up with a list which is representative of the culture that employees most relate to.
The next thing you need to do is distil this list down to the core values you can see in it. You can conduct surveys (if you have a large company) or talk to your employees (if the company is small) and ask them whether the values you have chosen resonate with them, and if not, which ones do. At this point, you should aim to have around 5 values, but this is a flexible number.
Last of all, once the core values have been established, share them throughout the company. Employees should relate to these values and they should also feel motivated to embody them. Communicate with your employees about why these values may or may not be working/suitable.
Remember that this is a process. You may not get it right the first time, which is why it is important to be receptive to feedback from all members of the company.
